Welcome on a journey! I call it the Path of a Composer. The idea is to post key pieces of my music from along the years and hopefully put some light on how I have developed aesthetically, in my craftsmanship and of course also artistically — resulting in these days where I am finally ready to proudly launch myself as a composer of modern art music. It is time for Chapter VII.
Wideplay: Überture (taken from the album “Wideplay I”, 2021)
Chapter VI was about me joining Discordia again and completing what I consider my greatest piece of rock music, Grip!. Despite the great experience and artistically satisfying results, the process once again also made it clear to me that I would probably no longer create music in such a big group of people. The more people involved, the more there is also extra-musical elements to buzz around — that´s the law of music making, like it or not.
Nevertheless my second go with Discordia left me with a lot of musical material that had not been used. After various phases, Riikka and Sande from the band were willing to create an album with me around those songs and so Wideplay was formed. Sande and I also wrote a bunch of new songs together many of which were recorded as demos as we tried out different arrangements.
In hindsight something about the subconscious exhaustion I started to feel towards rock music and progressive rock can probably be seen in the fact that despite many great songs Wideplay created, in the end I didn´t feel motivated enough to properly start producing more than an EP (30 minutes) of Wideplay music. There was starting to be the element of certain repetition, doing rock for the sake of doing rock.
Anyway, I started to compose Überture only once Wideplay was formed. I also remember that the very beginning of the piece was an idea I toyed with thinking that if I ever wanted to create a traditional romantic piano concerto, my grand opening would be something like that, dramatic and pompous. It is a rather funny thought as I have never ever planned on composing a piano concerto. Anyway, from the very beginning the point of Überture was to be profoundly eclectic and free-spirited music that would not acknowledge the boundaries of genres at all. What better way to start such a piece than with an idea I had for a grand piano concerto? 😉
It just so happened that straight after starting to compose Überture all of a sudden one of my very best friends I had known for around 25 years passed away due to heavy substance use. It was a great shock to me. Of course I knew things were far from well but I had not realised just how bad things had gotten. Consequently Überture shifted it´s focus immediately and it became my way of dealing with the horror of such a fate, the loss and the grief.
As the title suggests, from the very beginning Überture was meant to be over the top. The title also suited the personality of my friend perfectly. He was over the top. I was ready to go wherever the music and the narrative took me — and indeed I was taken to places I had never been before. The most obvious examples are the two techno sections in the middle of the piece. I had never done techno before it and I haven´t done ever since. I don´t even listen to such music. But both the material and the narrative pushed me towards it and the whole point of the piece was to expand the aesthetic boundaries anyway. Once again I needed to free myself musically (indeed it seems that such a musical liberation process is something I regularly have to go through) and free myself I did.
When it comes to my path as a composer, Überture is important in many ways. Firstly it further solidified my skills in creating longer works in a smooth manner and being free with my material. Technically Überture was the best I had achieved so far: diverse yet coherent, all the material closely related and developed constantly. Secondly my skills in musical production took a significant leap forwards. Thirdly I faced my own boundaries of “good taste” which I think is something I had to do sooner or later. And I have to be honest: every time the techno sections kick in, it is kind of hard for me to accept. Then again that kind of cringy awkwardness was the goal as it is obvious when it comes to the narrative and lyrics we are not dealing with a healthy little party here but something compulsive, something over the top, something unhealthy, something scary.
I created a detailed score for the the piece. Überture is scored for flute, piccolo, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani, drum set, percussion, electric drum set, piano, 4 electric guitars, bass guitar, synth bass, male and female vocals, a choir, 1st and 2nd violins, violas, cellos and double basses. The idea was that vocals would replace the sound of woodwinds, otherwise it would be a symphony orchestra combined with a rock band. Despite the eclectic solutions and the bold crossing of genre boundaries, I regard the work as a symphonic poem more than anything else.
I bought electric drums and played them on Überture although on Wideplay I there are acoustic drums elsewhere. I also played the electric bass and keyboards. Sande played many tracks of electric guitars. Riikka did marvellous job as the other vocalist, once again! I am especially proud of our choir sound. It also needs to be mentioned that although it took a long time to mix Überture, the sound engineer Seppo Santala did an amazing job. After being able to pull off something like the Überture mix, it was later obvious I could trust him even with something like my symphony.
For the record: In the youtube video I created for Überture there is a clown as the main character. Although my friend was one of the funniest people I have ever known (and the most social person I have ever known) and he was famous for his pranks, he was no fool, and neither was he “ridiculous”. But when it comes to artistic expression, bright colours, special emphasis and highlighting are often needed. With the clown character it is easier for the listener to grasp the narrative, I think.
Looking back at it all, completing Überture both as a composition and as a recording was crucial for my musical development. It resulted in giving me enough of the confidence needed to one day start believing I could pull of a symphony of my own. It is now also obvious that it is indeed Überture that finally pushed me over the cliff and forced me to accept that I would gain total artistic freedom and get to express myself to the fullest only in art music from them on. I wasn´t ready to accept it just yet but indeed it was inevitable.
Even after the Wideplay EP I recorded songs with people but something was missing. I found myself talking to people about music more than actually creating it. I was making things complicated out of subconscious frustration. Finally I realised that I had to leave progressive rock behind me and that a symphony of art music would be my way to finally achieve complete and uncompromising artistic freedom, something I had always craved. Something clicked, mental continents shifted and immense forces of nature started to flow. I freed myself also from the self-created (or society-implemented) social boundaries of music making and fully accepted that it does not make me a bad person if I want to be artistically uncompromising. That is the subject of the next chapter, my first symphony.